As the United States Senate voted on a bill that would increase the federal minimum wage, Fox News dedicated 15 times more coverage to the latest "developments" in its on-going campaign to create a political scandal from the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

Senate Bill Raising Federal Minimum Wage Falls To GOP Filibuster

Democrats Fall Short Of Breaking Filibuster To Advance Minimum Wage Vote. On April 30, Senate Democrats voted overwhelmingly in support of lifting the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. The legislation received the support of a clear majority of the chamber, with 54 votes, but fell to a procedural filibuster after nearly every Republican member of the United States Senate voted against the provision. [Roll Call, 4/30/14]

Fox Offers 3 Minutes Of Minimum Wage Coverage

Swept Up In Scandal, Fox Misses Minimum Wage Vote. During Fox News' April 30 programming, the network dedicated nearly 53 minutes to newly released emails between administration officials concerning media talking points relating to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Numerous Fox personalities referred to these emails as a "smoking gun," indicating an Obama administration cover up of events related to the attack, despite there being no evidence of coordinated attempts by the White House to misinform the public. During the same time period, Fox dedicated just over 3 minutes to a vote in the United States Senate to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour -- a move widely supported by business leaders, economists, and a significant majority of the American public.

For more information concerning conservative media coverage of the federal minimum wage, see here, here, and here.

For more on this and other information on Benghazi myths, visit Mythopedia.

Methodology

Media Matters reviewed internal video archives of Fox News Channel coverage from April 30, 2014 from 5:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We identified and reviewed all segments that included any of the following keywords: Benghazi or minimum wage.

The following programs were included in the data: Fox & Friends First, Fox & Friends, America's Newsroom, Happening Now, Outnumbered, and The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.

UPDATE (5/1/14): After the publication of this report, Fox News continued its focus on the newly released emails concerning the administration's public response to terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Following the same methodology,Media Mattersreviewed Fox News programming from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. and found that the network dedicated nearly 11 times more coverage to "developments" in the phony Benghazi scandal than to United States Senate vote to raise the minimum wage, which was blocked once again by a Republican filibuster. In full, the network dedicated more than two hours of live coverage to Benghazi on April 30.

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